“Not unless you’re a cop,” Del said and set it down on the counter.
“How am I supposed to wear this thing under my coat?” Novak asked, hefting the pistol.
“You don’t,” I said. “But don’t worry, you won’t be going undercover into any demon gangs. You don’t have the complexion for it.”
Del put a shotgun on the counter. Pump action, short barrel, holding six rounds of explosive double-aught buckshot. Just like the one I carried in my car. For things too big and nasty for the Raider to handle.
The last thing Del pulled out was a bandolier with a dozen mini-grenades attached to it. “You punch this button on top. You have to punch it hard on purpose, because you don’t want it arming accidentally. And make sure you throw it more than ten feet away from you.” He turned a baleful eye on me. “Don’t be sticking it in something’s mouth if it has you in a bear hug.”
“I didn’t really have a choice, and it turned out okay,” I said.
“Yeah. You were out of the hospital and back to work in only a week.”
“That was mostly for the broken ribs.”
“You’re lucky it shut its mouth instead of spitting it out in your face.”
Novak collected all his new toys, and I drove us over to the shooting range. Once we were there, I borrowed a mini-grenade from the guys at the range.
“Here,” I said, handing the grenade to Novak. “Push the button, then throw it at that target down there.”
He took it and pushed down on the button with his thumb. It didn’t go the first time. I knew it wouldn’t, it never did. He put some muscle in it, and the button clicked.
“You now have ten seconds to get rid of it. Or, if you throw it, it will blow up on contact.”
The boy had a pretty good arm. He hit the target dead center. When the smoke cleared, the target was gone.
“Okay. Be careful with those things, but if you need to use them, don’t hesitate. Blowing a hole in something is fixable, mostly. And you can’t explain why you didn’t use it if you’re dead. Now, let’s see if you can hit anything with that pistol.”
“I fired one of these at the academy,” he said, his face screwed up like a petulant child.
“And that was last week, or ten years ago?”
He scowled, turned away from me, took a stance, and fired. I could tell by the look on his face that the kick surprised him. That sort of memory usually wasn’t very clear after ten years. He gripped the gun a little more firmly, finished emptying the bullets in the gun, and proved he was a good shot.
“Okay,” I said when he finished. “Let’s go catch some bad guys.”
When we got back to the office, Whittaker called us in.
“We got a tip that Fredo received a shipment early this morning. I’ll have you a search warrant this afternoon, and Northwest DC will provide backup. The raid is scheduled for eight o’clock this evening.”
“Fantastic,” I said. Novak looked a little puzzled, but Whittaker dismissed us, expecting me to fill my partner in.
“So, what’s going on?” Novak asked as we walked back to our desks.
“Fredo’s Fantasies is a brothel and escort service in northwest Washington,” I said. “We are positive that he’s involved in human trafficking, but we’ve never been able to nail him. He tends to move his inventory out fairly quickly.”
“So, how does Arcane Division figure into this?”
“We’ve had a lot of dead girls, and a couple of boys, that we can’t identify show up in the metro area. Often they’ve been brutalized and sexually abused. A lot of them appear to be from other places—Asia, Africa, South America. No one ever reports them missing. We think they’re victims of trafficking.”
“That still doesn’t explain Arcane’s interest.”
“We’re pretty sure that Fredo is selling humans to Rifters, maybe some species of Rifters to other species of Rifters, or even Rifters to humans. Who the hell knows, but we need to find out. We think he’s either spelling them or drugging them. Turning them into zombies. Rumors are that his clients include those who enjoy humans as a meal, or other uses we mostly don’t want to think about. Some of the dead kids show evidence they were killed by monsters.”
“Ah.”
“So, we have the rest of the day off, unless we’re tagged, but I’ll pick you up here at six.”
Chapter 6
With some daylight hours to play with, I headed up to Roland Park to talk to Diana Benning about her daughter. I called ahead, and she was at her country club. She suggested that I meet her there for lunch.
Even though Diana had left word at the front desk that I was coming, I had to flash my badge to get through their security. They had some silly appropriate-dress rule that excluded assault weapons.
I was escorted to the dining room, where I found Diana sitting on the terrace. She looked even better in person than in the pictures I’d seen when I looked her up online. Mages age slower than normal humans, and dressed in skimpy tennis whites, she looked great for a woman with a seventeen-year-old daughter.
“Mrs. Benning?”
“Yes. Danica is it? Have a seat. I waited to order until you arrived.”
I was right on time, and made a note that Mrs. Benning believed in punctuality. The brownie waiter gave me precisely two minutes to browse the menu, then appeared to take our orders. Once we were alone again, I pulled out a small notebook and a pen.
“Your husband said that Sarah was at a concert rehearsal and left in her own car to drive home around nine p.m. Is that correct?”
“Yes. It’s only a couple of miles, and it usually takes her five or ten minutes at most, but she had told me earlier that she needed to stop by a store on her way home. When
